Energy bill increases blamed on 'draughty' homes

Npower has claimed bills in the UK are high because the country's "old and draughty" houses waste so much gas and electricity.

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Customers in the UK are having to pay higher energy bills because their "old and draughty" homes are too difficult to heat.

Energy giant Npower has claimed many of the country's houses are energy inefficient, and waste too much gas and electricity.

In the supplier's second "Energy Explained" report, Paul Massara, Npower's chief executive, said the actual unit prices of gas and electricity in the UK are among the lowest in Europe.

He said: "In 2013 we traded energy with around 80 other companies through open market exchanges. The actual unit price of energy in the UK is one of the lowest in Europe but bills are high because British houses waste so much energy.

Mr Massara also warned that the cost of upgrading the nation's energy infrastructure is set to increase bills unless households can take action through efficiency measures.

"If we can increase the efficiency of the UK's old and draughty housing, we can ensure that annual energy bills are some of the lowest too."

In its first report last year, Npower predicted average household bills in the UK would rise by £240 to £1,487 by 2020.

The company claimed that this was primarily because of "unprecedented investment in new infrastructure and the cost of improving energy efficiency in people's homes".

Last year, Npower announced a 10% average bill increase affecting about 3.1 million customers, but the firm has said that it will reduce bills as a result of a shake-up of Government green levies

It also claims that network charges will rise from 2015 to 2020.

However, energy regulator, Ofgem, has disputed this, saying that it sets the network charges and they are set to remain flat over that time.

An Ofgem spokesman said: "We welcome Npower's effort to inform the energy debate, however their data on network costs is incorrect and misleading. We offered to help Npower improve the accuracy of their numbers for network charges and it is disappointing that they did not engage fully with us until after the document had been circulated.

"Ofgem directly regulates the money that network companies can earn through charges. Given this level of certainty we can see that after 2014 network costs per household are expected to remain broadly flat in real terms. It is unclear how Npower can state with any authority otherwise."